Former MSU President, wife celebrate MSU Safe Place

Although she helped establish one of MSU’s most unique and important programs, Joanne McPherson still won’t say she’s completely satisfied.

McPherson, the wife of former MSU President M. Peter McPherson, founded MSU Safe Place 15 years ago, and despite having helped victims of domestic violence and stalking, McPherson said she wishes the shelter wouldn’t need to exist at all.

“My hope was we wouldn’t need it,” she said. “Unfortunately, apparently we do.”

The idea was brought to Joanne McPherson in 1994, when MSU police reported problems with violence but didn’t have any way to address the problem.

“We started with nothing and we kind of whined, berated, promised, pleaded, begged and pulled the thing together,” she said.

Now, 15 years later, Joanne and M. Peter McPherson walked among fellow MSU administrators Thursday evening at a celebration commemorating the founding of Safe Place.

MSU is the only university in the country with a program like Safe Place, program director Holly Rosen said.

“A lot of people believe for an educational institution that you don’t need a program because domestic violence doesn’t happen to people who are educated,” Rosen said. “But in fact it happens everywhere.”

MSU Safe Place provides food, shelter, expert witnesses and advocacy services for the victims of domestic violence in the Lansing area, Rosen said.

The work done by Rosen and others involved in the program didn’t go unnoticed by MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon, who was one of several speakers at the dinner.

“We do celebrate at Michigan State a set of values,” Simon said to the audience. “When we think about the set of values we celebrate, it really is having a caring for others in a way that expands the university in a new and different way.”

Awards were given to many in the area who have contributed to the shelter throughout the years. The MSU Federal Credit Union was commended for hosting Safe Place’s biggest annual fundraiser, the Race for the Place, and former faculty member Milton Muelder was awarded for his contributions as well. Muelder established the Milton E. and Kathleen D. Muelder Endowment for MSU Safe Place, which provides scholarships to those who have received services from the program.

“I was extremely happy when Safe Place was established and regarded it as a privilege to have been part, although a small part, of the program,” Muelder said.

Although Joanne McPherson created the program, she also is the first person to give credit to the others involved in the project.

“It has nothing to do with me,” she said. “It has to do with lots of people who are here tonight.”